First off, sorry for no Blog for pretty much the month of January. I've spent the last three weeks researching, writing papers, and taking tests on grammar, and have had little desire to write a Blog describing my quality of life which, at that point, was quite depressing. I had one term paper for my art history course, and a short final. I wrote my art history paper (in German) on Philips Wouwerman, an early Dutch baroque landscape artist living in mid 17th century Haarlem, Holland. In it I compared two of his paintings, "Winter Landscape with Skating Rink" and "Rest on a Deer Hunt," and discussed the distinct style of Dutch Baroque, driven by the demands of the Dutch, urban, open art market, as opposed to works specifically patronized by the nobility in most other parts of Europe.
I have a sizable paper due in April for my "Devil and Demons" class at the University, also in German. I am writing about how first the Papacy, and eventually secular rulers, characterized political opponents as devil worshipers and heretics to bring about their downfall. Examples would be the Knight's Templar, the Albegensian Crusade in southern France, and the Baltic crusading of the Teutonic knights. In doing so, I hope to explore the political and cultural significance of such characterizations in the 13th and 14th century, and how "evil" and "demons" represent polytheistic chaos and a challenge to God's orderly universe, as dictated by Papal politics, Catholic orthodoxy, and folk belief. Doing research for this was a real treat, such as searching through a 20,000 page German lexicon on the Middle Age's. I've got the majority of my research completed, and will actually go through with writing the paper in March after Mom and Norman leave.
My mother and Norman will be arriving here in Munich on Wednesday and will be in Germany for 20 days; we will be spending 2 weeks on an auto tour of south and west Germany. Speaking with Bavarians in the country will be difficult, as Bavarian is not so much of a dialect of German as it is a language resembling German. The number and variation of dialects in Germany is quite remarkable. It will be nice to get out of the city for a while, the countryside here is very beautiful, dotted with villages and small towns, each with it's churches topped by steeples and beer halls decorated wi
th antlers, the church not always being the larger edifice of the two. Bavarians seem to be the friendliest of the Germans, but also the proudest and most independent, for which they are not particularly liked by the rest of Germany. East Germans still resemble humorless Commies. Pictured on the left is the New City Hall with the Onion Domes of the Frauenkirche, the cathedral of Munich and seat of the diocese where Benedict XVI was formerly a cardinal.It feels very good to be on a break right now, a reality that takes a few days to sink in after going hard at the end of the semester. Most everyone was done Thursday night, and everyone was excited for drinks and partying, but by the time 10:30 rolled around everyone was so exhausted that we all started heading for bed! I guess everyone was just burnt out, I've been about as active as a koala bear and as adventurous as a turtle these last couple of days. I'm so lazy that I agonize between cooking for myself and walking to a bar in the Studentenstadt, on the one hand I have to cook and clean for myself, on the other I have to put on shoe's and a coat and walk almost 200 yards. Ich war ein wahr Penner (I've been a real Bum).
Here I am at the famous Hofbräuhaus with a couple girls from the program. Hofbräu is a lot of fun, but too crowded and touristy for me, I'm an Augustiner man all the way, there's never a time when I wouldn't want to go there.
I'm looking forward to traveling over the break, I'm trying to put together a trip where I would visit friends of mine in Prague and Vienna, and then take trip to Budapest. I have another friend in Rome who I would like to visit, to get down on the Mediterranean to warm up. We've had a rather Grey and muddy winter, not cold enough to snow but cold enough to be uncomfortable. I wish it would just snow already so that it would at least be pretty outside, although lately we've had more blue skies, something that Mom and Norman will be able to capitalize on when they visit.
I watched some fine German television recently. German soap opera's are pretty much the same as American soap opera's, the people, music, and set's even look the same. The simplicity of the dialog makes it a good learning tool, in case Gertrude tries to blackmail me out of my share of the estate by revealing it was my fault that Hermann, the true father of her child, is in a coma. I can only take so much before I change the channel, perhaps to an eating contest. Instead of washing hot dogs down with water, they were washing down schnitzel with beer, schnitzels that were the size of an extra large pizza. It was difficult to watch so many pounds of breaded and fried pork being consumed,
but strangely captivating too considering that they would wash it down with something as filling as beer, and guys were even pouring their beers on the schnitzel! It was gross but at the same time they spent a lot of time showing how they were prepared, and it looked like damn fine schnitzel. The rest of German television is all shows about how they manufacture tiny screws and other "how things work" programs.Here on the left my friend Everett and I are in the basement of my building a couple nights ago.
Well that's it for now, unless you want to hear more about my research, which I am pretty sick of myself!
Norman, Kathryn, and I will be on our trip for the last two weeks of February and into the beginning of March. I will try to update at some point on the road when I can get hooked up to the internet or find some wireless, but no guarantees!
Bis nächste Mal! (Until next time!)
